The present invention relate to a telephoto macro lens system that has a telephoto focal length useful with a 35 mm still camera and which exhibits high performance in taking pictures of all objects ranging from an infinite object distance to unity magnification.
The operating range of a conventional telephoto lens is from an infinity to approximately 1/10 magnification, and in order to take an object at a unity magnification, an accessory such as a closeup ring or a helicoid must be used. However, attaining a unity magnification with a telephoto lens using an adequately long accessory is outside the usual range of the operating conditions of the telephoto lens and only insufficient results are obtained. A normal lens or a semitelephoto lens is capable of taking pictures of all objects ranging from an infinite object distance to unit magnification, but given the same magnification, the distance between the lens and the object is so small that a tiny creature will be scared by the camera to move out of focus. A macro lens which may be considered as a telephoto lens is also available but the maximum magnification attained is up to 1/2 or even the macro lens capable of unity magnification exhibits poor performance because of great spherical, coma and chromatic aberrations resulting from changes in the object distance.